


Is it just part of the process?

by SayNevermore



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, I am obsessed with giving Lunafreya the complex emotions she deserved, Relationship Study, Starscourge (Final Fantasy XV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29085729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SayNevermore/pseuds/SayNevermore
Summary: She always forgives Gentiana in the end. She can’t even afford the luxury of holding a grudge. Nothing in this situation really is about her after all. She is the conduit through which the gods model the world.
Relationships: Lunafreya Nox Fleuret & Gentiana
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Is it just part of the process?

Every act of thaumaturgy is as painful as the last. Never easier, never worse. Just the same, like doing it for the first time, over and over. It doesn’t matter if the ill are old men or newborn children, it doesn’t matter if their symptoms don’t show or if their skin swell with purple veins of corruption to the point that they can barely move. Luna lays her hands on their shoulders and takes the plague inside her all the same. 

Every time it’s a struggle. She has no right to complain.

She takes it all from them, one by one, because it gives them hope to see her come to them, to see her do something, even something as ridiculously inconsequential as this: grabbing a handful of people from the bony hands of a scourge that takes in swarms. She hurts with them at least, she hurts instead of them, sometimes. She has no right to complain.

And she, at the end of the day, is absolved. She does not die for them. In the silence of whatever apartments that Niflheim has arranged for her this time, she expunges the stain. She gives it back digested, rendered—hopefully—harmless. Even though it burns her entrails like acid, drips from every pore of her skin in slick dark sweat, leaves her joints gray and aching for days, it cannot infect anyone. It’s nothing else but waste. She has taken all that was still holy about it, all that was still powerful. She is the instrument through which that, which once was divine, becomes mundane. 

She has no right to complain. 

“It is going to kill me,” she cries out still, arms holding the cold wall, throat dry and burning, tongue heavy with black tar. She presses the toilet flush even though she’s not done purging yet, just to see the black spit get drained away from her. “It’s going to kill me before I can meet my fate, I can’t… it can’t keep happening,” she cries, and she doesn’t meet Gentiana’s ever-closed eyes.

Gentiana keeps her distances from Luna after she meets the ill. On her good days, Luna understands. If even a drop of the thing inside her were to jump to Gentiana, then it would all be over, then everything they’re working towards would be ruined, and they can’t let that happen. And it doesn’t mean Gentiana doesn’t care, doesn’t mean she will not, later, brush her hair and choose her dresses and bring her food and tell her she is proud. It doesn’t mean Gentiana doesn’t ache to come to her help, would, if she could, hold Luna’s hair over the toilet and wipe the stains around her mouth, kiss her sweaty forehead with ice-cold lips. 

But it is not a good day. Gentiana stands still at the threshold of the bathroom and Luna feels the distance between them like the sharp edge of a blade, cutting through her courage and determination. Everyone keeps moving away from her. Her mother, her brother, her prince. And now Gentiana too, more and more often because Luna is growing into her role and it is part of her station now, to heal the entire world. Niflheim, after all, doesn’t care that it kills her. Doesn’t care that she has something more important to accomplish. Might be doing it on purpose. 

She’s seen the cold, old eyes of their chancellor, smelled the rot under his clothes, noticed the black flakes between his teeth when he smiles. He knows who she is, what her duty entails. He must be the one organizing all these meetings, all these trips to backwater villages that nobody cares about (No. _She_ is supposed to care. She cares, she cares, she cares.) in the hopes that she will extinguish herself before the time is right. And Gentiana should know, too. Can’t ignore that the evil they’re supposed to fight walks the empty hallways of Gralea near the emperor, that this is all a trap, that they should be resisting the orders. Can’t she offer anything else than a useless presence in the corner of the room, isn’t she supposed to make sure the prophecy happens, shouldn’t she spare Luna all that pointless suffering? Is it a test? Is it a trial of her faith? 

Because then, yes, on the bad days, Lunafreya wants to grab her by her long, black robes, and pull her close, wants to ignore the risk of infection; wants the infection, maybe. Wants to bring Gentiana down, at eye-level, lower even—on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor where she is. Make the divine feel mundane. Does it make her bad? Does it make her unfit for the task ahead? She buries the thoughts as soon as they arise, terrified that if they do make her impure, then Gentiana will simply leave. She doesn’t want her to leave. She doesn’t want to cause harm. Of course she wouldn’t actually do it! Of course not! She just dreams of it, sometimes—because she is alone, and she misses her mother, and the last time she touched another human being was when she let go of Noctis’ hand in Fenestala, and there are times where she doesn’t need an all powerful being watching over her steps as much as she needs someone who will hold her hair away from her face. 

“You know the date of your death,” Gentiana says, her lips—her whole face—unmoving. “Is it today?”

Lunafreya shakes her head. 

“Then you will survive this.”

But she _doesn’t want to_. 

(No, she can’t think like that, discarding he value of her life. She has a meaningful death to meet. She must want to survive at least until that point.)

“Will you take me to bed, now?”

“Are you clean?”

Luna wipes the black specks off her face as she bites her swollen tongue. She doesn’t say: _would I even suggest it, if I wasn’t?_ Her stomach, burned by the corruption, swells even more acidic and painful—proof, if anything, that her bad thoughts are made of the same corrosive material as the scourge.

She says: “Let me wash my hands first.”

It is a bad day, and Gentiana still doesn’t feel present, doesn’t feel real, when she holds Luna by her elbow to guide her gently into the bedroom. Hands covered in leather gloves, anyway. She helps with the dress, and the complicated hairdo that has started falling off. She holds the blankets open for Lunafreya to slide into. All the while she still feels far away. Maybe it is not her fault. Maybe it’s Luna who can’t quite manage to be here. It’s too exhausting to be here. 

She always forgives Gentiana in the end, she thinks, bitterness once again coating her throat. She can’t even afford the luxury of holding a grudge. Nothing in this situation really is about her after all. She is the conduit through which the gods model the world. 

“Are you staying until I fall asleep?” she asks, not looking up but loud enough that Gentiana can’t ignore it.

 _Stay_ , she thinks, as Gentiana stands up again. _Stay here with me, stay in bed, share the same space I occupy. You have been human once. I can remind you. You can remind me_. 

She doesn’t know if the gods really can read her thoughts or not.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a request on tumblr that got wildly out of hand, but if you want to ask for something and receive something unexpected in return, you can find me at @riotbrrrd


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